Shortbread, Two Ways

December 17, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 14 Comments

Shortbread, 2 ways Every year at Christmas, I go a little bit cookie-crazy. This year is no exception, so here comes Christmas Cookie Post Numero Uno. Stay tuned for many more.

Shortbread is kind of synonymous with Christmas. I don’t have one shortbread recipe that I re-make every year (unlike this biscotti), but I always make shortbread in some form or another. In the past this has included piped coffee kisses and hazelnut shortbread, both of which are totally delicious, but I wanted to emulate the more traditional chunky rectangles of Walker’s shortbread this year.

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Daring Bakers: Christmas Cookies

November 27, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 51 Comments

Holiday season is the time for sharing and Peta of Peta Eats is sharing a dozen cookies, some classics and some of her own, from all over the world with us.

Christmas cookies have a very special place in my heart. I’ve written about this before, but suffice to say that the Christmas season starts with me buying the latest Canadian Living Holiday Cookie magazine, making list after list to refine my exact cookie offering, baking and baking and baking until I have stacks of Tupperware containers full of cookies, and then finally, packaging the cookies into tins and boxes to give away to family and friends. This month’s Daring Bakers challenge, which was all about Christmas cookies, fed right into my obsession!…

Christmas Baking 2011: Eggnog Macarons

December 25, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 5 Comments

Merry Christmas! Here’s another way to enjoy some festive eggnog ;).

As I have previously mentioned, my first encounter with macarons was in Paris with my aunt when I was 18. I immediately fell in love, but I resigned myself to the fact that I would probably have to come back to Paris to ever taste them again, which would either be a) never, or b) a very very long time off. It never even occurred to me that I could make macarons at home – they seemed like some kind of impossibly complicated, intricate pastry that only the French could create – until I started noticing them popping up on food blogs a few years ago. However, it was also noted that the homemade macaron was a highly temperamental creation, and that the very techniques and methods that some people swore by were the same techniques and methods that others blamed for their macaron disasters.

Armed with the knowledge that macarons were possible in my own kitchen, I set out to scour the internet and learn as much as I could about making them. This may have been a mistake. Sometimes it’s better to go into things a bit blind, because you aren’t aware of every little thing that can go wrong and therfore totally paranoid about them. The whole process became overwhelming and a bit intimidating, so I put off making macarons for fear of failure.

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Christmas Baking 2011: White Chocolate Cranberry Almond Biscotti

December 21, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 7 Comments

This past week has been a flurry of butter, sugar, flour, parchment paper, the whirring of the KitchenAid mixer, and the beeping of the oven timer. I’ve made five kinds of cookies, chocolate truffles, macarons, and stollen dough. I’ve been baking before work and after work, and when bedtime rolls around, my back and feet are killing me and I spend the night dreaming of cookies. But it’s all good. I love it. Baking cookies is what my Christmas is all about :). This biscotti recipe is one of my favorites to bake at Christmas, because it gets awesome reviews from whoever receives them – especially Lynette, who asks, “Are you making the biscotti?” every year ;).

I first discovered this biscotti (from the Baker’s Best Chocolate Cookbook) in “Cafeteria” class in grade 10 or 11 (essentially pre-cook’s training). They were SO GOOD that I asked my Mum for the cookbook just so I could have the recipe. The first time I tried them at home, I burned them. I remember having dozens of slightly charred biscotti in the freezer because my Mum wouldn’t let me throw them out after putting all that white chocolate and fruit and nuts in them. Sigh. But obviously, I didn’t let that burnt experience stop me from trying again ;).

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Christmas Baking 2010 – Part II

February 10, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen Leave a Comment

Hazelnut Shortbread – triangular cookie on the left

As promised is Part I, here is the recipe for Hazelnut Shortbread. As I said previously, this cookie has a beautiful crumbly texture, great hazelnut flavour, and is not overly sweet at all. It may have been my favorite cookie this year.

Again, when baking shortbread, using real unsalted butter is a must. Because there are so few ingredients, butter really plays a starring role, and the flavour will be worth it.

The original recipe directs you to press the dough into two 8-inch cake pans and then score into wedges. I wanted to yield more, smaller cookies, so I shaped the dough into a triangular log, stuck it in the fridge until firm, cut it into slices, and sprinkled each one with raw sugar. The baking time was shorter as well, but I can’t remember exactly how long I baked them for. I would start checking for doneness after about 10 minutes.

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Christmas Baking 2010 – Part I

February 2, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen Leave a Comment

Christmas cookie overload!

For me, the Christmas Season begins when I buy my first Christmas cookie magazine of the year. Usually it is Martha Stewart or Canadian Living, but whatever it is, it results in me hauling out my large stack of past years’ Christmas cookie magazines and creating lists of what I’m going to bake this year. This list drafting usually takes me a few tries before I am satisfied with the selection: old favorites, new additions, chocolate, shortbread, dried fruit, nuts, something spicy… the criteria changes a bit every year. The staples for the last few years have been White Chocolate Cranberry Almond Biscotti, Chocolate and Black Pepper Cookies, Sparkly Ginger Cookies, and Lemon White Chocolate Pistachio Sandwich Cookies. Obviously, all this baking results in a profusion of Christmas cookies, which I package up and give to my family and friends as gifts. I figure it’s a win-win situation: I get to bake to my heart’s content, and they get to eat the fruits of my labour.

(Apparently it’s not as much of a win-win for those living with me during this baking mania. Both my roommate and my boyfriend have told me that it’s torture seeing and smelling all these cookies, and but not being allowed to eat any until the leftovers after I have divided them all up into cookie tins for gifting!)

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